Date:
July 22, 2006
Participants:
Solo
Distance:
Approximately 13 km
Elevation
Gain:
Approximately 1100 m
Maximum
Elevation:
3050
Elapsed
Time:
6:00 approx. (+ 2 hrs for bear!)
Published
Routes:
Kane
Published
Rating:
Moderate
Difficulty
- Endurance:
5.5
Difficulty
- Technical:
3.5
Kane indicates
that this is one of his favourite scrambles. I can perhaps understand this sentiment
in that the approach is in gorgeous surroundings. The scrambling is fairly lengthy
but is, with all due respect, just a scramble up a choss heap with intermittent slabs and rock ribs to scurry up to ease the
monotony. I must still not be used to the Rockies!!! The route is
generally steep hiking with some easy 3rd class scrambling and some periodic moderate steps. In fact the route I chose had a few short, unexposed, low 5th class sections that, although totally
avoidable by some negligible back tracking, out of laziness I just climbed up.
There
was a grizzly bear warning posted for the area and as I was the first person on the approach trail in the morning I was a
bit nervous. Every hundred meters or so I would let fly a bear call and I had
the bear spray ready to go. It’s not a pleasant feeling being the first
into an area, by oneself when bears have been spotted. In fact it was probably
a stupid risk.
The route
follows the Chester Lake
hiking trail then cuts across open meadow, through some bush and into a wide but steep ascent gulley to the col. From the col the route goes straight up the broad, rubble choked ascent ridge.
When I
was about 60% up the ascent ridge I noticed a large group of people assembling at the col below me. On the way down I ran into these folks on their way up and it turned out they were a group of 15 people
from the Calgary Outdoor Club (good thing they had helmets!). They indicated
that they had actually seen the grizzly meandering through the meadow directly in the path of the descent route. They suggested that I may want to wait for them at the col so that I could cross the meadows with them. Not wanting to be a grizzly’s lunch I took them up on the offer even though
it ended up adding about 2 hours to my trip. Nevertheless I greatly appreciated
their gracious offer. Some of the delay was waiting for all the members of the
group to catch up to the leaders including a young doctor who had been hit full in the chest by party induced rock fall and
had fractured some of his ribs. He was able to continue out under his own steam,
making a self diagnosis that the ribs were likely just cracked and not severely broken.
Big thanks
to the Calgary Outdoor Club for allowing me to accompany them off the mountain.